Travel
with us in style,
seeking for culture and
leisure.
POMPEI
Pompeii
which was buried under cinder from 79 A.D. in
one of the most disastrous volcanic eruptions,
today provides us with first class evidence of
how the way of life was in a Roman city during
the time of the Roman Empire. This site is located
in an extremely attractive setting and your guide,
who will meet you in Pompeii will not only make
this city become alive for you but she can rebuild
the city before your very eyes. The Roman Forum,
the Basilica, the town centre, the stores, the
fast food places, the Stabian Baths with their
separate men/women sections, the swimming pools,
the hot and cold rooms which are in an amazingly
excellent state of preservation, this is all there
to be lived, enjoyed and understood, learn how
life over the centuries or should we say way of
life has changed very, very little….What
to some people may be a few old rocks and stones
is in fact one of the most beautiful cities of
a past Roman Empire (tour duration: 4 hours).
Having sprung up
probably in the 6th century, it was populated,
round about the year one thousand, by a group
of nobles from the Maritime Republic of Amalfi
who had rebelled against the authority of the
Doge. The rebels made a good choice when choosing
the site in which to built their refuge: Ravello
rises in an easily defendable position.
The city quickly prospered, thanks in particular
to the flourishing wool-spinning mill, known
in olden times as the "Celendra",
that on the 23rd of April 1292 was conceded
to Bishop Giovanni Allegri by King Charles Il
of Anjou, to provident agriculture and to the
intense trade exchange carried out on the Mediterranean
sea routes, especially with the Arabs and Byzantines.
In 1137 Bernardo da Chiaravalle described the
city as "...ancient, well fortified and
impregnable, as well as being opulent it is
so beautiful that it can easily be numbered
among the first and most noble cities ...".
The history of Ravello was strictly connected
with the glorious and tormented history of the
Maritime Republic of Amalfi, whose lot she followed.
Its economic and political decline began in
the Norman period and became dramatic in the
course of the seventeenth century: having lost
its prosperous economy, Ravello had only...
all the rest: an incomparable position from
the naturalistic point of view and architectural
and artistic marvels built during the centuries
of splendour.
AMALFI COAST
40 Minutes
from Positano, tour time: 1 hour.
The Cathedral, founded in the 9th century, retains
its original bell tower.
The church went through a number of alterations
and eventually the façade was re-built
in the 19th century based on the original monument.
There are two important doors, at the entrance
and two 12th century ambos in the interior. From
the atrium, the access to the Cloister of Paradise,
which is one of the most cherming pieces of Norman/Arab
architecture.
POSITANO
It is a dream place
that isn’t quite real when you are there
and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone.
Its houses climb a hill so steep it would be a
cliff except that stairs are cut in it. I believe
that whereas most house foundations are vertical,
in Positano they are horizontal. The small curving
bay of unbelievably blue and green water lips
gently on a beach of small pebbles. There is only
one narrow street and it does not come down to
the water. Everything else is stairs, some of
them as steep as ladders. You do not walk to visit
a friend, you either climb or slide. In the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries Positano became very
rich. Its ships went everywhere, trading in the
Near and Middle East, carrying the spices and
silks and precious woods the Western world craved.
Then the large and beautiful baroque houses that
stand against the mountain were built and decorated
with the loot of the world.
About a hundred years ago a tragedy came to the
town. Steamships began to ply the ocean. Positano
could not compete; year by year it grew poorer
and more desperate. At that time there were about
eight thousand citizens. Between 1860 and 1870
about six thousand of the townsmen emigrated to
America and the great houses stood vacant and
their walls crumbled and the painted designs paled
out and the roofs fell in. The population has
never got much above two thousand since.
If Positano bites deeply into a stranger, it is
branded on the Positanese. The bulk of the émigrés
went to New York and most of them settled on Columbus
Avenue. They made a little Positano of it, they
celebrate the same festivals as the mother town,
they talk Positano and live Positano. In New York
there are over five thousand people who where
born in Positano - twice as many as live in the
mother city. Besides these there are many thousands
of descendants and all of them are tied very closely
to the Italian city.
TODAY POSITANO
IS A REKNOWN TOURIST ATTRACTION CITY WITH SOME
OF THE BEST HOTELS IN THE WORLD,THE FASHION IS
BEEN VERY SUCCESSFUL AND TODAY WE HAVE WITNESS
OF THAT WALKING BY THE ALLEY ROADS,
LET'S ENJOY TOGETHER THE BEAUTY AND
COLORS OF THIS PLACE.
